Adventures in Buenos Aires, Argentina - Part 1: Accomodations, a cooking class at Teresita's and Recoleta Cemetary

It's been quite a long hiatus after a particularly intense last year (starting a new company definitely puts a pause on lots of things in life unfortunately - sleeping is definitely cramping my style). I figured a good way to start off the new year was with a series of nice, long posts on my latest adventures in Buenos Aires.

This was my first time in South America and I had an absolute blast. I'd heard such great things from a bunch of friends and was completely prepared to be blown away by the food, the tango, the spanish/italian influenced architecture and all-around great lifestyle and I was definitely not disappointed.

After a 14 hour flight with a barely made connection in Santiago, I escaped the blizzards and sub-freezing temperatures of NYC and made my way into the fierce summer heat of Buenos Aires. I chose to make my homebase in San Telmo after reading countless descriptions of the neighborhood's bohemian qualities, charm and historic appeal. Unfortunately, I found certain parts of the neighborhood quite run-down and felt that I would have been uncomfortable walking around late at night on certain of the narrower and darkened streets. San Telmo is also quite far from most of the neighborhoods I spent most of my time in (by cab, about 15 minutes from Recoleta and about 20-25 from Palermo - thankfully, cabs are insanely cheap - probably the equivalant of $0.35USD per minute) The next time I visit, I'd probably choose to stay in either Palermo or Recoleta but in any case, I stayed for a few nights at the Moreno Hotel which was an absolutely gorgeous modern boutique hotel with huge rooms and an incredibly nice staff. A shot of a portion of my room (which is larger than my entire apartment in NYC!):



A map of the neighborhoods in Buenos Aires (San Telmo is near the bottom):


Cooking in Buenos Aires:

One of the best things I did in BA was take a cooking class at Teresita's. The class was held in Teresita's gorgeous B&B about an hour outside the city in a leafy, quiet suburb. Teresita's resident bbq-master and driver, Buddha, picked up a bunch of us and drove us out to the house which was to me, the perfect B&B hideaway.

From top-left clockwise: The neighborhood, the living room, the kitchen, Buddha bbqing in the yard

We were all there for a 5-hour empanadas and asado (bbq) class so on to the cooking we went:



In sequence: kneading the empanada dough, rolling it out, making the filling, stuffing, wrapping; the asado; dulce de leche crepes seared with a flaming hot iron

The filling was a combination of ground beef which we picked up at the local market that morning, onion, chopped hard boiled egg, raisins, olives, scallions, aji molido (ground red, dry spicy peppers), cumin and sweet and hot paprika. One thing I found really interesting were the two ways the empanadas were cooked - one by baking and one by frying and then sprinkling with sugar. I thought the baked empanadas were delicious - really dense and moist but greatly preferred the fried ones which were lighty, airy and had a great balance of salty/sweet which I love. I do have to admit we ended up not learning much about the asado as we all settled in to drink wine and eat the empanadas that we'd spent all afternoon making. The class was so much fun and incredibly relaxing. This was my first time actually playing with dough and I think that this is a habit I'll find hard to break. Since any good meal really starts with good people, it was very lucky that we ended up with a fantastic group. I met Kristina, a lovely, accomplished and incredibly creative woman who heads up a ballot initiative non-profit in DC, a wonderfully funny family from Hawaii, a
charming duo from Denver and a serene and deeply tanned peace corps worker on her way to visit her sister in NY. Kristina and I ended up hitting it off and spending a lot more time together in BA so more on our adventures later. All in all, I've completely resolved to do as many of these cooking classes in different countries as I can.


Recoleta Cemetary:

Of course any trip to BA would be incomplete without visiting the cemetary in Recoleta where Eva Peron is so famously buried. I wasn't sure what to expect but this was unlike any other cemetary I've ever been to - there was a really muted, beautiful atmosphere and wasn't overrun with tourists as I was expecting since it was so huge. I noticed a lot of cats sleeping on the cool marble tombs and crossed paths with quite a few black cats.


Full flickr set here